Another 24 Hours

Earlier this year I took a college class about misinformation. I learned techniques to spot it, ways we can avoid it, and even how to pre-bunk it, or stop it in its tracks. The very first assignment was to analyze 24 hours of my own personal media consumption. In that particular class, I was really looking deep for misinformation, and so in the last few hours I started looking in places I wouldn’t normally venture into.

This semester, I’m taking a course on digital literacy and, while the focus isn’t so finely tuned to misinformation, there is a lot of crossover on the two topics. When I read that I would be documenting another 24 hours of my media consumption, I thought why not just study an organic 24 hours, without me “looking for trouble” like I did last time? Below are the results.

My 24-Hour Media Diet (Fall ’23)

Last time I did this, I started mid-day, which honestly, was very on-brand for me. After all, I often work late and mid-day is sometimes where my day starts. This time, however, I was determined to track one day from dawn til dusk.

August 24th, 2023 at 12:30am: I realize that it’s past midnight and start tracking my media consumption. My sister is visiting from New York and we’re up rather late playing Wingspan, a fantastic bird-collecting board game. It’s her first time playing and she predictably ends up in last place, but the game is altogether close, with my wife taking first by one point. We listen to a few records, including Yo La Tengo’s This Stupid World.

A New Start

9:30am: I awaken. I start my day with the devastating discovery that while I was playing Wingspan with my wife and my sister last night, my Wordle streak ended. 41 days down the drain. No time like the present to start a new streak. I get the answer in four guesses.

I then read about the previous night’s GOP debate. I follow politics pretty closely, but with my sister in town, it seems that both politics and Wordle have fallen by the wayside. I scroll around on X mostly and I don’t end up opening any articles. It looks like Vivek Ramaswamy had a pretty solid showing and Ron DeSantis pretty much got clowned on.

10:00am: After heading downstairs, I watch my son (9), his best friend, and his cousin play some MarioKart. I have trained him well, and he is quite handily beating the competition. I’m tempted to play, but I get wrapped up in a conversation with my sister about Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent demise. She’s pretty sure it was a set up. I get on my phone and open the BBC News app first to see what information they have. I end up looking at NPR and New York Times articles as well before I move on from the matter. There’s no proof of wrongdoing, nor is there any evidence mentioned, but Putin’s reputation certainly looms over the conversation.

Game Time

2:00pm: After wrapping up some housekeeping, I sit down to play some games. I’ve got the day off work today and it’s the last day of Fortnite’s battle pass, so I’ve got a little catching up to do if I want to unlock Optimus Prime (which, of course, I do). I play for about 2 hours and hit all my goals. Mission accomplished.

4:00pm: I play Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, a mobile game that requires specific actions every day at specific times. 5:00pm marks the end of a Grand Arena Championship, which is a two-day battle against a different opponent each time. I’m in the 48th hour here and I’ve done squat. I sign in and do my fights, winning enough battles against this opponent to secure a win. I screenshot the scoreboard and send it to a friend who also plays. I also post the screenshot in Discord for my in-game pals to see. Today I am royalty.

Family Time

5:15pm: My daughter (7) is trying out for a community theater production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical. We spend a good 15 minutes rehearsing her audition piece, titled Naughty. It’s the song that introduces the audience to the character of Matilda, and she is hamming it up with a thick British accent singing “sometimes you have to be a little bit nough-ty (hyphen added for emphasis)”.

5:40pm: I watch one episode of the Amazing World of Gumball with my kids. It’s a silly, mindless show that they’ve discovered and they’ve probably watched every episode 4 or 5 times. I enjoy it a bit, but it’s just nice to be sharing something with the kids. You’ll note everything we do today is inside because there’s a heat warning in Michigan because it’s so disgustingly hot and humid. Like glasses instantly fog up humid. Ew.

6:45pm: I take my son to his piano lesson and listen in the next room as he learns “Cantina Band” from his Star Wars beginner piano book. He struggles sometimes learning new songs, but he sounds great tonight.

The Great Refresh

At this point, I kind of have to drop a disclaimer. I don’t mean to be preachy in my posts, but I aim to be as honest as I can, and sometimes that means I have to mention politics. Now, for those as plugged into politics as I am, Thursday, August 24th has a bit of an expectation looming over it. Donald Trump announced earlier in the week that he had planned to turn himself in to the Fulton County Courthouse on Thursday. This is his fourth indictment, but one of the key differences for politicos like me is that the Georgia case is taking a mug shot. A mug shot. Of a former president.

Here’s where I can’t not let my politics show: I’m no fan of Trump. I’m like, really not a fan. And so, I spend a good amount of time refreshing my X feed to see this mug shot drop. I’m not proud of it, but I really do get caught up in the moment wanting to see it posted online. It’s one of those moments where it truly feels like you’re living history. Those are always weird moments and Trump has given me a lot of them.

Showtime

8:30pm: Each week, my podcast cohost and I host what we call a “Dathchat”- a live video chat open to anyone who supports our show on Patreon. Most weeks, we have a couple people stop by and chat, but this week no one showed up, which is great because I had to work very early the next morning. This meant we were able to record our weekly episode promptly, so after prepping the show notes for about an hour, we recorded episode 356 of Galactic War Report from about 10:00pm to 11:00pm.

The topics vary from week to week as we have to address game updates that drop rather frequently. There weren’t really athat many updates this week, so we have to piece the show together by reporting on our own activity during the week and doing some features on strategy. Sometimes a slow news week gives us a little breathing room to play with the format and that’s what happened this week. Solid episode.

I know a lot of people who podcast, and one thing I appreciate about our show is our quick turnaround time. From the moment we stop recording, I can usually have a show edited and uploaded within an hour pretty easily. I cruise through editing this episode (my Garageband game is strong) and play just a bit more of Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes before I crash, preparing to get up for work about 4 hours later. What can I say? I am dedicated (have a problem).

The Wrap

So what have we learned?

Admittedly, this was one of my lower-intensity days. I spent a lot more time gaming than I normally do and I only left the house for a brief piano lesson since the air conditioning was so crucial in this heat wave. (I recognize it’s been worse in Arizona this year, but this was Michigan’s hottest couple days.) I think maybe there’s some knowledge to be gleaned by how dedicated to gamin I was with the end of Fortnite’s season and the very late night session of Galaxy of Heroes. I have always been aware of my demons, I just let them have a little fun on this day.

I think the two other interesting notes with regards to my media consumption are:

1. When my sister said Putin shot Prigozhin’s plane down, my instinct was to check multiple sources. As much sense as it makes for Putin to exact revenge on someone who so directly insulted his authority so recently, I have seen too many assumptions prove false to take anything like that at face value. My official stance is: I have no proof but it would track.
2. The feeling I had when refreshing X for Trump’s mugshot. As I mentioned, I’m no fan of his, and I’m sure there was some degree of schadenfreude involved, but I really felt like I was living through a distinct moment in history. To be blunt, after the last few years, I could really do with less of that feeling as I am (and I think we all are, to a degree) just over it.